Apple iOS to get Adobe Flash-browsing capabilities. Say what?

What’s this? Flash running on iPad 2? Are you serious? Apparently so. Well, sort of. At least in the case of streaming Flash videos. A sneak peak during NAB by Kevin Towes, Senior Product Manager, Adobe Flash Media Server, demonstrated streamed Flash media content to multiple devices including the Mac OS X desktop, iOS on the iPad 2 and Android Honeycomb on the Motorola Xoom.


In a recent announcement, Adobe now supports HHTP Live Streaming (HLS) on the Adobe Flash platform. Via a tweak that works with HTML5 supported browsers only, Flash content can be streamed to any device regardless of whether the device has Flash player installed or not. Where Flash is installed, Flash Media Server packages the stream using MPEG4-fragments (F4F) to deliver video over HTTP to Flash. Interesting stuff.

No, this doesn’t mean those Flash banner ads on those web pages will load. Nor the 2-min intro Flash splash pages on websites. Nor can you play Farmville on Safari. Sorry.

Watch the video demo:

Vernon
Vernon is the founder and chief editor of Vernonchan.com. A graphic designer by profession, he has a deep love for technology, cars, gadgets, food, and travel. He tweets too much and is also known as a caffeine bacterium ("life's too short for bad coffee"). Bleeds Blue (go Chelsea FC!) and considers BMW, Porsche, Alfa Romeo cars to have in the garage--hallmarks of a true petrolhead.